Prior art solutions for creating multi-wavelength laser sources require a large device footprint. Some solutions utilize an array of fixed wavelength lasers, where each laser has a fixed wavelength output. The disadvantage of this type of solution is that it requires one laser cavity for every desired output wavelength—thereby having a large device size and requiring a large number of components such as gain/phase/mirror elements, drivers, control loops, etc. Other prior art solutions utilize large intra-cavity filters such as arrayed wavelength gratings (AWGs); reliance on this type of filter further limits the functionality of the laser device, as this type of filter relies on non-linear gain effects to achieve single mode operation for each output wavelength—such effects are not suitable for full gain bandwidth applications.
Descriptions of certain details and implementations follow, including a description of the figures, which may depict some or all of the embodiments described below, as well as discussing other potential embodiments or implementations of the inventive concepts presented herein. An overview of embodiments of the invention is provided below, followed by a more detailed description with reference to the drawings.